Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Hmm? Eren! You are back. Did you complete your missions?"

Jake asked as soon as he entered the dorm house and found Eren reading a scroll in the living room.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. They were all low levelled ones, anyway. Did you find out about Adapt Levine's classes?"

Only then did Jake realize why his friend was waiting for him in the living room. It wasn't that the guy felt like talking to him after his missions to vent out any built-up excitement or frustrations he had.

Eren was only focused on what he had asked Jake to do. The latter smiled mirthlessly before replying:

"I did. You were right. Adapt Levine did put a notice regarding her upcoming classes. She says she'll be conducting them twice a week. She'll be starting them a few days after the first round of intra-class ranking war commences.

This hag is charging double the Merps than what Edward Jenner is charging. But there's a way to get around it.

Day after tomorrow, she will organise a practical test for all the novice potioneers. The ones who pass that test will only be required to pay a meagre amount of Merps. The discounted Merps charge is way lesser than Jenner's charges. It seems she only wants to get top students for herself at the expense of discouraging a majority of mediocre ones.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I'll be able to pass the test. I can handle elementary potions if I know about the exact procedure. But I'll not be able to make even a one-star F-Rank potion. And the test needs at least a two-star outcome in the same rank to clear it."

Jake conveyed his lack of optimism in clearing the test.

*************

The creation of F-Rank potions was a lot similar to elementary potions in many ways. The only difference was that the potion-in-making liquids need to be imbued with one's mana at the right time in the right quantity.

Other subtle steps needed the intervention of mana imbuing from a potioneer's side. The imbuing part wasn't difficult itself. Anyone could do it.

But the test of the potion makers lied in imbuing their mana without disrupting the potioneering process. There were numerous ways with which the potion-in-making could get affected. The most common way among them was imbuing the ingredients with elementalized mana where it was not needed and not regularizing the mana elementalization where it was needed.

Plus, the inherent nature of a ranker also had the power to affect the potion's quality positively or negatively depending upon the way they implemented it in the manufacturing process. Absolute control over one's mana imbuing, spells, right timing, and a hint of sixth sense was necessary to become a successful potioneer.

**************

"Don't worry, Jakey. A day is enough for us to polish our skills. I'll teach you. We'll convert this living room into a potion lab and practise our skills here. Are you in?"

Eren offered a helping hand to his housemate. Jake never expected the latter to be this approachable. He had come to terms with Eren's recluse nature. But the guy still had some surprises in store for him.

"Are you sure? Of course, I'm in. I want to be a potioneer too, you know. That's where all the money is. But it'll still be difficult to crack Adapt Levine's test. I'm not that skilled in potion-making yet.

Don't get me wrong. I trust your potion-making and teaching skills. Madam Nina must have taught you well. But you had just broken into F-Rank before coming to the academy. So all your in-lab experiences are only related to making elementary potions.

We don't even know the potion's name which is going to serve as a test. We only have enough time to practise potion-making for two potions, if we cut it close. If they don't appear in the test, it's game over for us.

Plus, we don't have any lab instruments. And I can guess we don't have enough Merps to get the sets from the academy even with both our accounts combined. Unless…!"

Jake paused midway and looked at Eren, receiving a smirk in response. The latter proceeded to take out all the instruments required to set up their lab.

"Unless I have the instruments. Come on, man! How can you think aunt Nina would send me empty-handed without the right apparatus for potion-making? We'll still need to buy a few things and some necessary ingredients. But that shouldn't stop us from turning this living room into a full-fledged potion lab.

Don't worry about my skills. They are enough to make us pass the test and enter Levine's elite club of students. And I know which potion is going to appear in Levine's test! We only need to practise that potion's manufacturing for the entire day. That is enough time for me to teach you in making a two-star variant of the solution."

"How do you know which potion is going to appear in the test?"

"The same way I knew about the incoming assassinations and bandit attacks on Jason's carriage when we were coming here."

"Why won't you tell me then, what is your source? And will you ever give me a complete piece of news without hiding anything from me?"

"Trust me, man. The less you know about the source, the better. All you need to do now is go to sleep and wake up early tomorrow with me. We'll hit the lab as soon as we can, take the necessary apparatus and ingredients from it, and start setting things up in this room.

You'll skip the homeroom lectures. You will have to stop attending the homeroom lectures most of the time from tomorrow on if you want to keep up with me. Don't depend on freebies, Jake. Heed my advice. Invest in the knowledge that is worth your time.

Your father is still in the city of Lionhearts, right? Tell him to send you all the extra Extols he has. Ask him to liquidate some of his wealth if he can. You are going to need a lot of Merps in the coming days."

Eren talked with Jake for a while, giving him a detailed plan of what he was going to do. Jake was really impressed with him. But he had noticed that a lot of his planning was based on certain conditions that may or may not happen. Jake didn't know from where he got the confidence to base all his planning on his self-made assumptions or seeming information leaks.

"Alright, alright. I'm in. But you will pay the Merps for all our ingredients and apparatus. I will return the invested Merps with 10% interest only after your planning comes to fruition."

"10%? Jakey, my man. I'm taking all the risks in this deal. I'll take 20% and that is final. Don't start haggling like I'm some sort of a customer of yours in your shop now."

"Haah! Fine. Have it your way then. We still have Edward's classes if this endeavour of yours fails. It'll be fun to see your face if all your investment goes to waste. Hahaha!"

Eren chucked at Jake's taunt.

He didn't feel angry. The guy was trained as a businessman from his childhood. He wouldn't take unnecessary risks in the market he was unsure of.

It was Eren's job to make a frugal person like Jake bleed Merps, no matter how cautious he was.

"And it'll be fun to see yours when you have to pay 20% more in a few days!"

Author's Note: The late release is regretted. I was too invested in a cricket game last night to care about the release. The worst that could happen, happened! My team lost. That too in an extremely miserable way.

I understand that victory and defeat are part of the game. But the players playing on the international stage should carry a self-imposed responsibility towards their audience to ensure that the game doesn't become one-sided. The loss should make sense. There's a certain dignity to be found in defeat. But that didn't happen!

Don't know if it'll make sense among all the readers out there, but I'm sure most sports fans would get it. The moral of the story, I didn't feel productive at all yesterday.

Anywho! Enough about my rant!

A lot of stuff related to potion-making has its background based on the information that was provided in chapter 19 titled Potioneering. Check it out in case you feel the details about certain aspects of potioneering are lacking in this chapter. ;)